HEALTH CONDITIONS OF ELDERLY PUERTO RICANS

University Of Wisconsin Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

DESCRIPTION (Adapted from the Applicant's Abstract): The proposed project will collect and analyze information on health conditions, living arrangements, transfers, and access to and use of health care among older adults (aged 60+) in Puerto Rico. We propose an island-wide, cross-sectional sample survey of target individuals and their surviving spouses or partners. The baseline survey will be complemented by (a) a single follow-up to take place two years after the baseline survey; (b) record linkages with Medicare and other insurance providers;(c) record linkage with certificates of decedents who die between in the inter-wave period; and, (d) a sample of targets' siblings for the analysis of paired survival times. The data the investigators propose to collect can be used to addresses the following goals: (i) to describe health conditions of adults 60+ in general, and of those 80+ in particular, with regard to self-reported health conditions, physical and mental impairment, and functional disability; (ii) to assess the effects of socioeconomic conditions and migration histories on health status, physical and mental impairment, functional disability, rates of institutionalization and mortality risks; (iii) to assess relations between self-reported chronic conditions, functional disability, mortality and institutionalization, and background conditions, including migration experience. (iv) to assess relations between individuals' history of illness, behavioral risks, and shared environments, on the one hand, and chronic diseases, disability, mortality and institutionalization, on the other; (v) to identify risk profiles based on functional limitations, self-reported conditions, and risky behavior and use them as inputs for short-term forecasting of age-patterns of morbidity, disability, and mortality, (vi) to evaluate elderly's access to and use of health care services, including those supplied outside the formal medical establishment; (vii) to investigate the sources, magnitude and direction of intergenerational support, as well as the activity of kin networks, as a function of elderly' health status; (ix) to establish comparisons with information about Puerto Ricans in the US and other Hispanics and, with proper modeling techniques based on spouse and siblings data, to obtain robust estimates of effects of socioeconomic effects and migration experience. This will help to shed light on the seemingly favorable health conditions of Hispanics living in the US (NRC1997).